


Syllogism

by orphan_account, rambunctiousragamuffin



Series: cadavre exquis [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Non-Chronological, Temporary Character Death, i repeat it's a timeloop au so, it's a timeloop au, nothing explicit blink and you'll miss it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 04:19:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6641227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account, https://archiveofourown.org/users/rambunctiousragamuffin/pseuds/rambunctiousragamuffin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>syllogism |ˈsɪləˌdʒɪz(ə)m|<br/>noun<br/>an instance of a form of reasoning in which a conclusion is drawn from two given or assumed propositions (premises); a common or middle term is present in the two premises but not in the conclusion, which may be invalid (e.g. all dogs are animals; all animals have four legs; therefore all dogs have four legs).<br/>• [ mass noun ] deductive reasoning as distinct from induction.</p><p>He woke up to die--or did he die to wake up? He didn't know. Hux was having trouble keeping the endless numbered cycles straight. They all seemed to bleed together into one long confluence of misery. He had tried and tried and <i>tried</i> to figure out how to break free of this accursed timeloop, in fact, he had tried everything that he could think of.</p><p>So, of course it would have been one of the things that he would have never even in a million years have <i>ever</i> thought of that would break the timeloop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Syllogism

**Author's Note:**

  * For [plinys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/gifts).



> This was a gift for plinys--who requested touch starved! in-verse, and also amnesia. I couldn't quite figure out how to work the amnesia in, and timeloop was the best that I could do.

The series of events that led up to this point were a series of miseries, each more despondent than the last. Somehow, they culminated in Hux holding the shamed Lord of the Knights of Ren in his arms as he died, broken and bloody. Holding him in the snow as his life’s work--no, his magnum opus--imploded around them. In this brief moment before his imminent demise, Hux allowed himself to feel sorry for himself.

 

Just this once, just before he died, he deserved this moment of self-pity. He deserved this moment, with the cold and the damned damp permeating into his core, with the melted snow seeping in through his uniform, the wind whipping against his face and the hand he had bared to check for Ren’s pulse. This moment, as he had held one failed objective in his arms while another failed around him. Starkiller, it had been called. How apt a name it was, as it would be not only the death of the rising star of his career, but his own.

 

It was kind of funny, in a way, that he would devote his life so entirely to this project. All those sleepless nights, a seemingly infinite number of interminable board and budget meetings, conferring to an endless panel of experts and technicians, subsuming almost every waking hour. Sometimes, they would even sneak into his rare reposes, and he would have a dream over the sheer  _ power _ that the literal planet-sized weapon represented. Now… now, as he crouched in the snow, the planet imploding beneath him, he would devote his death to it, too.

 

In that moment where Hux could feel Ren’s heart beat for the last time where he had his fingers pressed upon his pulse point… In that moment where he could hear the Knight’s final, faint, exhalation being carried away by the harsh gales, and was so crushingly aware of his own frail mortality… 

 

Just as he had accepted--no,  _ resigned _ \--himself to his inevitable doom, and could feel the infernal immolation lapping at his skin, singing his hair and searing his flesh… 

 

Just as he had  _ finally _ let himself acknowledge his burgeoning attraction to Kylo, now that it had no chance of ever being reciprocated or consummated… 

 

Just as he let himself gently caress the side of Kylo’s cold dead face...

 

***

 

Hux woke up in his quarters on Starkiller Base. Hux woke up, and that day his career died.

 

***

 

Hux died, and that day he woke up.

 

***

 

He woke up, and went about his morning routine, much the same as he had every day since his days at the Academy. For a moment, he had considered not bothering, he had considered lounging around in bed--or perhaps sending Kylo an invitation to join him. He considered it, but ultimately decided against it.

 

One of the times that he had just lain in bed all day, Kylo had come barging in and had forcefully removed him from his bed--Hux was just glad that wasn’t the time that he had decided to wile away the hours with his cock in his hand. That had been… what? His ninetieth time reliving this day? Ninety days of abject failure, and he was getting more and more aggravated, filled with more and more impotent rage that he could not direct anywhere.

 

He had tried sparring, a few times. Once with Phasma, and he had been wholly and utterly, embarrassingly defeated. Once with Kylo, but after having Kylo die in his arms so often, Hux found that he was not able to bring himself to do any harm. So he had decided to take a day to himself, and spend the day working out his frustrations in a more… productive manner.

 

Another time, it had been Phasma to have dragged him out of bed. That morning, he had ordered some underling or another to distract Kylo so that he would have no-one to disturb him while he wallowed in despair. But fate, it seemed, had other plans, and the chrome Captain had seen him to rights. Once, it had even been  _ Mitaka _ . What had he even been doing on Starkiller?

 

It was something like his one-hundred and fortieth time reliving this day--it was his one hundred and  _ fifty _ -eighth time, actually, of course he had been counting--and it was something like his one-hundred and fortieth time failing. But he got out of bed anyway.

 

He got out of bed, and he died.

 

***

 

Space--that vast, indifferent void--was  _ cold _ . It was cold in a way that seemed to seep into Hux’s very bones, despite the climate control of the state-of-the-art Resurgent-class starship that he was currently stationed on. Of course, that might also have been because he was standing under an air-vent, staring through a transparisteel viewport, out at the infinite expanse stretching before him. The  _ Finalizer _ was in orbit over Starkiller base, but the deep  _ nothingness _ of space was much the same as it would have been, had the  _ Finalizer _ been in orbit over any other planet in any other system in the galaxy.

 

Hux appreciated that about space; the uniform conformity, in that regard. That there was some semblance of order to be found, even in something as inherently chaotic as the very nature of space. Even if space was mostly empty, and very,  _ very _ , cold, it was beautiful in spite of it. Or maybe  _ because _ of it.

 

Though his posture had not lapsed during his ruminations, and was still as immaculate as ever, he straightened his spine and squared his shoulders when he heard the heavy pad of Kylo Ren’s boots approaching him. There was something tentative, almost hesitant, in the way that Ren slowed as the distance between them closed. When there were only a few feet between them, Hux could feel the Knight’s gaze boring into his back. Though he did not flinch at being so keenly observed, it was a close thing.

 

He did not deign to acknowledge Ren, even though Hux knew he was there, instead waiting for the Knight to make his presence known. They remained at a detente for a moment, Hux aware of Ren’s presence, and Ren cognizant of the fact that Hux was aware, just refusing to acknowledge him. Hux stared out at the stars. Ren stared at Hux.

 

It was a curious sort of stalemate, both waiting for the other to swallow their pride and make the first move. Despite the fact that they were both on the bridge, in plain view of several officers, it felt like no-one else existed in that moment. It was probably more due to Hux’s officers quietly and competently going about their work, and less due to any sentimental flight of fancy, but… Ren continued to loom just behind Hux, just close enough that the General could fancy feeling the warmth radiating off of the Knight. 

 

Hux’s indulgence in the reprieve from responsibility was meant to be brief, a mere moment enjoying one of the few liberties that his position allowed him. But instead, he found himself protracting the moment unnecessarily. He tried to tell himself that it was to force Ren to observe basic decorum, to go through the protocols of proper human interaction. He tried, and failed.

 

He heard the thud of a heavy footfall, and expected--hoped?--to feel Ren pressed right against his back, and then another, and suddenly Ren was standing beside Hux instead. Their arms brushed, just barely, and even through their uniform, the brief contact felt like burning. He let himself enjoy the indulgence of feeling Ren’s arm pressed against his, just for a moment. He was very busy, in his position as General, and it had been a very long time since he had last had any sort of physical contact with someone else.

 

He let himself enjoy it, just for a moment. In an instant, he turned away to return to his responsibilities. After twenty-eight times failing to change things from Starkiller base directly, he had decided to see if there was anything to be done from above, instead.

 

***

 

The very first time he had relived his doomsday, he had woken up and dismissed the events that led to the destruction of Starkiller as nothing more than an anxious nightmare. He went to the refresher for a sanistream, and eschewed a proper breakfast in lieu of a cup of caf. If he had it with more sugar than he normally did, well, it was an important day today, and he needed to be on his top form. However, he couldn’t seem to shake off the pervasive sense of foreboding that followed him everywhere.

 

At first, he did his best to ignore it. When still it persisted, and Hux found that he could  _ not _ ignore it, even with the most fastidiously focused application of his discipline. When still it persisted, and he could not ignore it, he did his best to disregard it, instead. What was so foreboding about something as innocuous as putting his dress uniform on, anyway?

 

But Hux found that he could not disregard it, either. Not when he found that he knew what people would say before they said it, and Hux found himself preemptively answering their questions. It was a queer feeling, feeling like he had been through this all before.

 

It was not until a “week” later that he finally decided that it was not a fever-induced delirium and that he really  _ had _ been through all this before. The realisation was staggering, and came at the most inopportune time, in the middle of his speech before all his troops. The realisation made him trail off mid-sentence. When the enormity of the situation hit him, he fainted.   
  
The medics claimed it was malnutrition.   
  
The next “day” he ensured he ate a filling breakfast. He didn’t faint that time, instead he embarrassed himself far more thoroughly, defiling his dress uniform. Hux could not feel relieved that he would be the only one to remember the… incident, when he was so shamed by it. In fact, his shame was so great that he ran away halfway through his speech the next time.

 

The time after that, however, he steeled his resolve. Maybe if his postulation was a bit more… inspired… his troops would see victory.

 

They did not.

 

Hux died, still. Hux died, after Ren had died in his arms.

 

***

 

Hux always died. It wasn’t always due to the implosion of Starkiller.

 

A few times, it had been by his own hand. A quick blaster shot to the temple, throwing himself off of the ledge before his troops. Once, he had commandeered a TIE fighter, and had been shot down in the sky.

 

A few times, he had goaded Ren into finally snapping. He knew first hand what it felt to have that unstable lightsaber sheathed within his flesh, to be slowly exsanguinated by a wound that weeped his life force. He knew first hand what it felt like to feel his life slowly ebb away as he was asphyxiated by the force itself.

 

But his favorite--and isn’t that a maudlin thought? That he had a favorite way to die--was being choked by Ren’s own hands. Feeling his--massive--hands around his throat, even if gloved, was strangely intimate. It wasn’t that he found it  _ erotic _ , per se. But it was the contact involved, and he craved the contact so very, very much.

 

***

 

Some days, he actively avoided Ren, and mostly, he was successful. But sometimes, he would chance upon him. Or rather, the flurry of the cloth of Ren’s robes as they accidentally collided in the hallways. Hux’s reflexes were swift enough that he was not sent sprawling gracelessly on the cold floors, but he did stumble and reflexively grasp on to Ren’s clothing for support whilst righting himself. If Hux felt just how  _ solid _ the Knight was as he brushed Ren’s chest with his palms to stabilise his stance, well, no-one needed to know.

 

Nobody needed to know about the illicit thrill that jolted through him, either. It was just the adrenaline from being surprised that made his hands shake as he straightened his still-impeccable uniform, the shock of the collision that made his stride uneven as he loped away. But Ren had other plans and trailed behind on his heels as the General went about his business, a shadowy spectre as Hux received the recon report from Petty Officer Thannisson.

 

Hux adamantly refused to look over at Ren, who was unnerving and intimidating the Petty Officer, preventing him from eloquently elocuting his report. He refused to validate and gratify the Knight’s childish behaviour. If Ren wanted his attention, he would have to go about seeking an audience with him  _ properly _ . Being the Lord of the Knights of Ren did not give him sufficient excuse to be so remiss in basic manners.

 

When Ren huffed impatiently, Hux ignored him. When Thanisson finished his report and Hux dismissed him, the General still did not turn to the Knight. When Ren stomped furiously away, anger crackling around him, Hux did not reach out to grasp Ren’s wrist, Hux did not shout out at Ren to stop and wait. He also absolutely did  _ not _ allow himself a small, fond quirk of his lips at the Knight’s antics.

 

They were infuriating, not endearing, and his puerile behaviour did not need encouragement. Ren was a hurricane thundercloud, hanging over Hux’s head, bringing disruption and chaos into Hux’s perfectly ordered system. He swept in like a rapid gust of wind, explosively, and left disruption in his wake. He was a force of nature, however loth Hux was to admit it.

 

Not that he would ever admit it to Ren, either. Nor would he admit to idle musings about whether or not… couplings… with the Knight would be equally tempestuous. Being a General of the First Order, in command of a Resurgent-class starship with upwards of 82,000 crew in addition to being in command of a project as immense as Starkiller base meant that he was far too busy to waste time on whimsy like that. Much less waste time on actualising his quandaries, on discovering just how hot the blood in Ren’s veins ran, if it was just as fiery as his temper.

 

He opened his commlink and sent a message to Chief Petty Officer Unamo.

 

***

 

Once, he had slapped a set of Mandalorian Ore shackles on Ren, and all but chained him to himself, so that wherever the Knight went, the General did, too. It was this day that he discovered where Ren had disappeared off to, it was this day that he discovered how Ren had been so grievously injured.

 

It was also this day that Hux discovered how much a bowcaster shot to the gut can hurt.

 

***

 

There was not much that Hux could do about Han Solo’s indomitable  _ gumption _ . To approach atmo at FTL was so far beyond gall, it wasn’t sheer folly anymore, it was just  _ suicidal _ . There was not much that Hux could do to ensure that his troops reigned supreme in the dogfight against the Resistance’s X-wings. The circumstances were too unpredictable, too chaotic, for Hux to be able to form any form of sound strategy.

 

Not that this stopped him from trying. He spent a good “fortnight” attempting to strategize a battle plan. It was mildly successful, and managed to... _ mitigate _ the loss of his troops, at the least. But the time he spent trying to apprise his troops with the plan rendered it inefficient, and he could far more effectively spend his time trying to ensure victory.

 

He may have won the skies, that day, but he still lost Ren.

 

***

 

Eventually, he approached Chief Petty Officer Unamo. One of her roles was to act as counsellor, and Hux figured that since she wouldn’t remember and anything that he might say to her wouldn’t be put on his permanent file, that he might seek her advice. Not about the situation, no. That was too crazy for him to fathom, and he didn’t want to bring it up to her, even if it wouldn’t be put on his file.

 

She would likely declare it to be stress-induced psychotic delusions, and would recommend he destress. He didn’t need that kind of patronisation, so he didn’t bring up the subject. Instead, he approached her about Lord Ren.

 

It was really quite useful, talking to someone about his burgeoning feelings--without including any names, of course. It helped him to bring his tumultuous thoughts into order. His “anger” at Ren that wasn’t really anger at all, just attraction that he had confused for anger. His fierce competition with Ren was just him lashing out because he didn’t know how to show affection without fear of appearing weak and vulnerable.

 

***

 

Hux returned to see Unamo a few times.

 

***

 

Gradually, his attitude towards the Knight began to change. Somewhere along the way, Hux stopped thinking of him as “Ren” and began to think of him as “Kylo,” instead.

 

He also stopped trying to actively avoid Kylo, and sometimes even sought him out.

 

***

 

The first time, it was ostensibly to ask Kylo’s opinion on his Starkiller speech. Over so many days--Hux had been caught in this loop for nearly six “months” now--he had lost his zeal, and the speech had become bland, and lacklustre. As far as excuses to impose his presence on Kylo go, it was pretty lame, and even without being able to see Kylo’s face, Hux was able to  _ see _ Kylo’s skeptical expression.

 

But Hux had been so nervous and ready to turn and tuck tail that Kylo could sense it for the olive branch that it was, and accepted. 

 

That day, he learned that while Kylo didn’t like to use words very often, instead preferring to rely on brute force, he was very skilled at oratory. A trait, he claimed, he inherited from his grandmother.

 

They met a few more times like that, with Hux thinking up more and more ludicrous excuses to seek Kylo’s company each time, and slowly learning more and more about Kylo. 

 

Kylo learned more about Hux too, he supposed, but it would always be forgotten when the loop reset.

 

***

 

Hux always died. Except for the time that he didn’t. He always woke up, always alone. Except for the one time that he woke up with Kylo snoring softly beside him, no bowcaster or lightsaber wounds visible.

 

He turned, ever so carefully so as to not awaken Kylo, and traced the constellations of moles upon Kylo’s well-defined back. It is said that familiarity breeds contempt, but even after dozens and dozens of “days” that Kylo and Hux had frantically fornicated, or slowly and sweetly made love, Hux held nothing but adoration for his… for his lover.

 

***

 

The first time they fucked, Hux would barely even call it that. It was more like drunkenly frotting against each-other. It was maybe the tenth--of course it was the tenth, he was counting--time he had lived through the loop, and Hux was drunk on the power from pontificating to his troops about the imminent demise of the Republic, and Ren was drunk on the intoxicating presence of Hux’s enthusiasm. Hux doesn’t count it, though. He doesn’t count it until the first time he saw Kylo’s face.

 

He had challenged Kylo, in front of all of the  _ Finalizer’s _ bridge crew to take his helmet off. Tensions were high--this was after they had frotted together, but before he had discussed his feelings with Unamo--and Hux was feeling especially aggressive after a particularly spectacular failure. Hux had tried to modify the thermal oscillators to withstand the blasts of the explosives planted by the traitor FN-2187, and had accidentally destroyed them, instead.

 

Hux was too mad in that moment to fully appreciate Ren’s unique charms; those luxuriously luscious locks and licentious lips. He was too mad to appreciate how… responsive, the Knight was. The way that Ren was so touch-starved that he came in his robes just from feeling Hux’s hand cupping his cock and the General’s nose nuzzling just underneath his ear.

 

The second time that Hux counted, it was almost like a date. Hux had imposed his presence on Kylo--this was after he had started calling him that--with a bottle of Corellian brandy, and they sipped straight from the bottle and exchanged pleasing childhood anecdotes, all the while just getting more and more relaxed in each-other’s presence. There was a small bead of brandy on Kylo’s lips that Hux just  _ had _ to lick away…

 

***

 

Hux had tried just about everything that he could think of to ensure Starkiller’s survival, and actually succeeded a few times. But, each of those times, Kylo did not survive, and still the loop reset.

 

***

 

One “day,” when Hux was leaving a well-fucked Kylo in his chambers, Hux accidentally let slip the depth of his affections for him. That moment was when Hux realised that the victory condition might not be about Starkiller’s survival, but about Kylo’s.

 

***

 

It was about the dozenth time that they had made love properly that Kylo broached the question about peering into Hux’s head. He had thought nothing more of it, too ingratiated in indulging himself in prurient pursuits, and agreed. But Kylo delved a bit too deeply into the memories that Hux kept stored away, and nothing kills the mood quite like seeing your own death over and over again.

 

Kylo lashed out, assuming that these were fantasies of Hux’s, seeing him broken and bloody in the snow. How could Hux do this? How could Hux  _ use _ him like that? So cruelly, so callously.

 

Hux fervidly begged Kylo to listen, to let him explain so that Kylo could understand.

 

Naked, on his knees before Kylo, desperately pleading, seemed to be out of character enough to give Kylo pause enough to calm, and listen.

 

It was quite a wild tale that Hux wove, leaving no detail out. Each time he had died. Each  _ way _ he had died, not even mincing words when he said that it had been at Kylo’s own hand. He gestured grandly, tried to impart as much emotion as he could into his words, but nothing seemed sufficient enough even after hours of explaining until his voice hoarsened.

 

He felt a bit like Scheherazade, from an old tale that one of his nannies had told him in his youth. He felt like his story was the only thing keeping him alive at that moment.

 

In the end, Hux just begged Kylo to look in his mind once more, and see.

 

***

 

From then on, that’s how Hux began his interactions with Kylo, by asking him to look into his mind. It saved time. Of course the efficiency, the expedience was his primary concern. Not the intimacy involved.

 

Even though Kylo was able to see into Hux’s mind without physical contact, and Hux knew this, he still loved to feel the long, slender fingers of Kylo’s caressing his cheek, or his own hands while he read Hux’s mind.

 

***

 

The first time Hux killed Han for Kylo, he had been killed by the Wookiee in turn. The next time, he killed the Wookiee and then killed Han, only to be killed by Kylo in a pique of rage. It was understandable in a way, to Hux. He had stripped Ren of his opportunity to satisfy his vendetta, had stolen his agency.

 

The last time he killed Han, he killed him  _ with _ Kylo.

 

This time, Kylo was able to deflect the bowcaster shot, and neither of them were grievously injured.

 

The thermal oscillator was still destroyed,  _ Starkiller _ was still destroyed, but this time, Kylo didn’t die.

 

***

 

The next morning Hux woke up, and he woke up with Kylo beside him, snoring softly.

 

Later that day there would be some talk about mumbo jumbo mysticism, involving Force-bonds or somesuch, but Hux was largely just grateful that after almost an entire year reliving the day over and over and over, he would finally be able to live the rest of his life.


End file.
